Shadows
by SasaQueen
Summary: The Shadow World was not a place for living souls, or any human, for that matter. It was a world of our thoughts and dreams, our wants and desires... They were a part of us, and we were what made them. His name was Vlad Masters, a human from the Real World, and he was the first to truly discover the Shadow World. The second to visit the Shadow World would be Danny Fenton...


There was a light at the end of the tunnel.

I just had to get there.

•~•~•

 _The Shadow World was not a place for living souls, or any human, for that matter._

 _But one day, it happened._

 _His name was Vlad Masters, a human from the Real World, and he was the first to truly discover it._

 _The second to visit the Shadow World would be Danny Fenton..._

 _But that's a later story._

•~•~•

Vlad Masters was a regular human being, a college student with a crush on a beautiful woman, rivaling against his own best friend.

He was a stunning young man, and the woman almost fell for him...

But one day changed it all.

It changed his life, everything he had ever known. He lost Maddie, the woman of his dreams to Jack Fenton, his former best friend.

His life was great, up until he and his friends delved deeper into the sciences, looking further into parallel dimensions.

It all began with his idiot friend Jack, and a small portal.

Maddie, sensing something wrong at the time, tried stopping him, but too late. "Jack, these calculations aren't correct-"

"Bonzai!" Jack cried, pushing the remote's button.

Vlad, inspecting the portal, had no idea what had happened. One second he was looking through the hole of their small experimental portal, and the next, all he saw was darkness.

When he gained consciousness, he was lying with his back to the floor, eyes sealed tight. There was an uncomfortable stillness in the air around him, and Vlad sensed something was wrong. Surely Maddie would be upon him, checking if he was hurt? Shouldn't Jack be overly concerned for his well being? In fact, he couldn't hear a thing. Was he in the hospital? Had the experiment gone wrong by the hands of the bumbly idiot named Jack Fenton?

Vlad could hear odd noises in the distance, murmurs and whispers. It was almost like static.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was the color.

Black and white expanses with gray in-between was all his eyes could see. Distorted looking buildings flickered in and out, transparent gray blobbed humanoids causally walking to and fro.

Every single shade from pearl white to pitch black surrounded him, objects looking transparent and glitched.

Vlad was pretty concerned by now, his heart rate almost doubling and his breathing rough and jagged.

Looking down, he could clearly see he was just the way he was before this... This incident. Colored and fully visible. His skin was still tan, his lab coat still white with green stains on them.

He stood up, noticing he was on a sidewalk with tall buildings that lined his right side. On his left was a busy street full of cars and people. Continuing on from there was just more sidewalks and buildings, people and random animals.

It felt like a dream.

Surely that is right, Vlad thought, trying to make sense of everything happening. Surely I am not dead and this is all one big dream? A hallucination, perhaps?

What exactly happened in the lab? What had Jack done?

All he could recall was his friend turning on the portal... Then darkness...

Right. He was knocked unconscious and now he was here.

Standing up, he made his way through the crowd of distorted humanoid figures and came to the closest building. Attempting to rest against the brick wall of the building, he stumbled and fell.

"What in the world?" He muttered under his breath, getting back up. The building was flickering in and out, visible then invisible the next second.

To test a theory he made, he pushed out his hand up to the building only to find it was solid. He tried again and it went right through it.

Vlad was a little more than just concerned now. What was happening felt real and fake at the same time. He was clearly lucid, but what was going on made no sense at all.

"Need a hand?" Asked a voice next to him. "I mean, I knew there were some odd people around here, but I never thought I'd see some guy sticking his hand inside a building."

Vlad quickly turned around, facing the newcomer.

The voice belonged to a young woman, perhaps the age of twenty. She was partially transparent, though much more solid looking than anything else around here. She wore a one-sleeved tank top and long black pants that ended with big, high heeled boots. A guitar was strapped to her back with a certain casualness. Her hair was up in a ponytail, crazily combed, and it reminded Vlad of fire.

And suddenly, it was on fire.

"What the-!" Vlad exclaimed, jumping back a few feet.

The woman laughed. "Don't be so jumpy, man. It's almost like you've never seen flaming hair." After closer inspection she asked, "You are a Shadow, right? You seem really weird looking with all those colors." She poked him lightly. She was definitely solid. "You remind me of my Real," she said quietly.

He backed away some more. "A shadow?" He looked down. He didn't even have a shadow. In fact, looking up at the sky, there's was no sun or sky. It was just a blank expanse of nothing.

It gave Vlad the chills.

She laughed. "No, silly! Not that kind of shadow. I'm talking about this," and on the last word, she emphasized it with a gesture to the surrounding area. "You really aren't a Shadow, are you? How is that even possible?"

"I have no idea," Vlad gave her a blank stare. He was getting anxious. Where was he, exactly? This couldn't possibly be a dream, could it? And if it wasn't, then how was he going to get out of wherever he was?

The young woman shrugged. "In any case, I'm complete now. My Real just died, so I guess that kinda makes me her." She smiled at that. Offering her hand, she said, "Call me Ember."

•~•~•

Maddie held back a scream, and ran towards Jack, taking the remote and shutting off the portal.

"Jack! What did you do?!" She cried, then made her way to Vlad.

There was a lot of smoke covering her close friend, and looking closer, she could see his dark form.

"...Vlad?" She asked softly.

Jack joined her, and crouched down next to his best pal. They were friends for a while now and he wasn't about to kill him.

No, he had to save him.

When Jack had activated the portal, it immediately released a blinding white light, and gases began to erupt from the machine. Sparks were thrown about from the formal portal and a soft static noise was heard, though it seemed distance.

Now Vlad was curled up on the floor, shaking. He let out a groan...

It didn't sound right.

It seemed to echo, nothing like what a human's voice should sound like, and Jack wondered what exactly he had done.

And when the smoke cleared, the two gasped in surprised.

For what had replaced their former friend was a dark, flickering form. It was made up of black, gray and white, a flowing cape and suit with spiked black hair. It was transparent, though clearly visible.

"Who... What are you?" Maddie asked fearfully. What was this? An apparition?

It groaned again, and responded.

"I'm... I'm Vlad. Vlad Plasmius."


End file.
